The Peace Negotiations eBook

To be entirely frank in stating my views in regard
to Mr. Wilson’s attitude toward international
arbitration and its importance in a plan of world
organization, I have always been and still am skeptical
of the sincerity of the apparent willingness of the
President to accept the change which was inserted
in his revised draft. It is difficult to avoid
the belief that Article V of the original draft indicated
his true opinion of the application of legal principles
to controversies between nations. That article,
by depriving an arbitral award of finality and conferring
the power of review on a political body with authority
to order a rehearing, shows that the President believed
that more complete justice would be rendered if the
precepts and rules of international law were in a
measure subordinated to political expediency and if
the judges were not permitted to view the questions
solely from the standpoint of legal justice.
There is nothing that occurred, to my knowledge, between
the printing of the original draft of the Covenant
and the printing of the revised draft, which indicated
a change of opinion by the President. It may
be that this is a misinterpretation of Mr. Wilson’s
attitude, and that the change toward international
arbitration was due to conviction rather than to expediency;
but my belief is that expediency was the sole cause.

CHAPTER XII

REPORT OF COMMISSION ON LEAGUE OF NATIONS

The Commission on the League of Nations, over which
President Wilson presided, held ten meetings between
February 3 and February 14, on which latter day it
submitted a report at a plenary session of the Conference
on the Preliminaries of Peace. The report was
presented by the President in an address of exceptional
excellence which made a deep impression on his hearers.
His dignity of manner, his earnestness, and his logical
presentation of the subject, clothed as it was in well-chosen
phrases, unquestionably won the admiration of all,
even of those who could not reconcile their personal
views with the Covenant, as reported by the Commission.
It was a masterly effort, an example of literary rather
than emotional oratory, peculiarly fitting to the
occasion and to the temper and intellectual character
of the audience.

Considering the brief time given to its discussion
in the Commission and the necessary haste required
to complete the document before the President’s
departure, the Covenant as reported to the Conference
was a creditable piece of work. Many of the more
glaring errors of expression and some of the especially
objectionable features of the President’s revised
draft were eliminated. There were others which
persisted, but the improvement was so marked that
the gross defects in word and phrase largely disappeared.
If one accepted the President’s theory of organization,
there was little to criticize in the report, except
a certain inexactness of expression which indicated
a lack of technical knowledge on the part of those
who put the Covenant into final form. But these
crudities and ambiguities of language would, it was
fair to presume, disappear if the articles passed
through the hands of drafting experts.